Our Trip to Virginia - Part 2

Monday was our first full day in Virginia. We all decided, well Sarah and I decided, we would stay at the campground and situate ourselves. After a night of rain, we now had the pleasure of having to dry out. Everything in our tent was soaked. Now we had 2 tents on the site. 1 tent had Levi and Elijah, while the other tent had the rest of us totaling 5. This was a big tent, but Sarah wanted to get an air mattress, which we found out didn't like to hold air. By the morning, every morning, we were both touching the ground. But getting back to everything being wet, there was to much going on in the tent to keep us all dry. So everything had been pulled out of the tent and a clothes line was set up to start the drying process. Sleeping bags were sent down to the dryers to ensure they were dry by bed time.

At some point, we wanted to get the night off our minds and do something besides wait for things to dry. So we headed to the pool. The pool is full of water! Something that shouldn't get your mind off of what just happened over night. Anyhow, it worked. We all enjoyed the pool before returning to reality at our campsite. It wasn't until later that we were visited by Boo Boo Bear. Did I mention camping at Jellystone? The children enjoyed playing with him, jumping on his back and getting piggy back rides from him. About 5 minutes of hanging out with us, he had to leave for bed time. Sounded good to me. There was a big day tomorrow. We were heading to West Virginia.

Michaela and Bailey have a brother and sister in West Virginia. They hadn't seen them since leaving their home with Mom to come and live with me. I don't wanna get to into it, but their brother and sister no longer live with Mom either. We left for West Virginia for a small town called Hinton. It sits in the southern part of the state. It took us just over 2 hours to arrive in Hinton and again, I thought we weren't going to make it. Since my long drive down to Virginia, even a half hour ride somewhere was to long. Anyhow, we made it. But before you even get into Hinton, you have to climb a mountain which I have been told, the road that you climb and ride down, you pass yourself 5 times. therefore, the road is so curvy, you literally pass yourself 5 times. This road it in the Genius Book of World Records for passing yourself 5 times. Once you climb and make your way down the other side of the mountain, you find yourself in Hinton. Hinton is in a valley within the mountains of West Virginia. The mountain sides are covered in sandstone and the rivers are layered with the very same rock. You can literally walk all the way across the river without tripping on anything but your own feet. The river bed is 1 large flat rock. It was very beautiful there. So were arrived and for the first time in almost a year. Michaela and Bailey got to see there brother and sister, Drew and Abbey. They played and played and had so much fun being with each other again. Later, the Grandparents, whom Drew and Abbey were living with, had a huge cookout. Other family members from New England and in town came for the special occasion. Steak, chicken, corn on the cob, hot dogs, hamburgs, you name it, it was probably there. Of course, this would set me up for a long ride home. But I don't wanna get ahead of myself.

Before leaving Hinton, I made it a point to find and plant a letterbox in West Virginia. Luckily, Hinton had a letterbox planted in town and it was littered with state parks. Walkabout had planted a box called Walkabout down around the trail depot. It was a nice area and sure enough, the box was there. Being the only clues I printed down for West Virginia, I would have been pretty upset if it wasn't there. But I didn't have to lean that way. I found a box in West Virginia. Now to plant a box. Just down the road from the Grandparent's house was Bluestone State Park. It was there I planted a box called Brothers & Sisters in honor of this special occasion. Mission accomplished. 1 planted and 1 found and 4 together again. But now it was getting late and it was time to head home.

The ride back to camp was a bad one. The speed limit was 70 mph and it was getting so bad for me that I was driving at about 50 mph. Everyone else in the car was sleeping and I was well on my way. So I decided to get off the highway and pull into a lot for a nap. Sarah had woken up an noticed what I had done. I guess at some point after I fell asleep, someone pulled in behind us and parked. They were there for awhile and then just left. Then another car came but left right away. This all happened while I was sleeping. Then out of no where, I freaked out and grabbed the steering wheel. Sarah started laughing hysterically ad I was now pissed. I had thought I was still driving and I jumped out of the car, heart pounding, even more pissed that she was laughing. What if we were driving still? She wouldn't be laughing then! About 12 or so years ago, I fell asleep at the wheel and got into an accident. I didn't ever want that to happen again. Once Sarah stopped laughing, she offered to drive and we switched seats. She drove for about an hour and once we got off the exit needed to get to camp, I started driving again. I had been taking naps while she was driving and felt rested enough to finish the 10 minutes left to camp. Good thing too! 2 deer and something big grey and fluffy ran across the road in front of us. We arrived back at camp about 11pm and we were all ready to head to sleep. If we were lucky, it wouldn't rain tonight. And we were! It didn't rain. To be continued......